x 73 



&fjc IPerftg iHtmtctpal ittttmmeutg. 



By C. E. B. Bowles, M.A. 



| HE writer was recently permitted to examine the 

 interesting collection of MSS. which constitute the 

 Records of the Corporation of Derby — or rather, 

 all that is left of them, for some sixty years ago, 

 the greater portion was consumed in the fire which utterly 

 destroyed the Town Hall. The remnant, which dates back to 

 the time of Queen Elizabeth, was conveyed to Tenant Street, 

 when the office of the Town Clerk was removed thither from 

 the existing Town Hall. When Mr. G. Trevelyan Lee was 

 appointed to the office of Town Clerk, he found them tied up 

 in parcels, but unsorted, and in no measure arranged either 

 according to date or matter, and, worse still, utterly uncared 

 for. In such a condition were they eighteen years ago in 

 the Town Hall, and in such a condition they had been 

 removed to Tenant Street. The town of Derby is, however, 

 now to be congratulated upon the keen interest which Mr. 

 Lee, who at once saw that this valuable collection was suffer- 

 ing from neglect, has taken in the matter, and upon the happy 

 accident that at the time, Derby's Chief Magistrate, the Hon. 

 Frederick Strutt, was an antiquary, and a Vice-President of 

 this Society. 



The Books, MSS., and Parchments, as Mr. Lee found 

 them, were lying, just as they had been brought from the 

 Town Hall — a bewildering chaotic heap of heterogeneous 



